Marcus Trescothick asks England to be wary of Mohammad Amir

Former England opener Marcus Trescothick warned his successors to be careful of 24 year Mohammad Amir, who in the first tour match of Pakistan four-match series in England has taken three wickets with lightning fast swing balls against Somerset at Taunton on Monday.

Somerset in the second innings of the match were bowled out for 128 in reply to Pakistan’s first innings 359 for eight declared. Now Somerset are a deficit of 231 runs. Pakistan in their second innings scored 140 for 4 .

Pakistan now leading by 371 runs with the day three remaining. Batsman Azhar Ali was batting on 50 while Asad Shafiq on 26 not out.

Amir was jailed for being involved in 2010 spot-fixing during the Lord’s Test against England along with his new-ball partner Mohammad Asif and captain Salman Butt. A tabloid newspaper sting operation revealed.

All of them were jailed for five years and together with sports agent Mazhar Majeed.

Amir made his return to international cricket in 2016 January against New Zealand. The England tour is his first Test tour since 2010.

Amir will make his return at the Lord’s on July 14 against England in the first Test of the series. Amir is now cricket’s one of the most beautiful seamers who can fast with a swing that makes batsmen’ life difficult.

Pakistan declared their first innings on Monday morning following a century by Younis Khan, Amir took the new ball.

Left-hander Trescothick has edged to a superb outswinger that moved late and wicketkeeper Sarfraz Ahmed held an excellent diving catch.

Amir took two more wickets with two classical deliveries. His one inswinger bowled first class debutant Adam Hose.

Eight minutes later after the lunch, Amir bowled Peter Trego with another inswinger that uprooted over the batsman’s middle stump and left the other two standing.

“He bowled very well,” said the 40-year-old Trescothick, whose nine-balls faced on Monday were all bowled by Amir, after stumps.

“He swung the ball really late, that’s the biggest thing we noticed.

“In my ‘magnificent’ eight I thought it was pretty hard work, it was tricky,” added Trescothick, who has played 76 Tests for England from 2000-2006 scored 5,825 runs at an average of nearly 44 with 14 hundred.

“You get a lot of bowlers who swing it quite early but he (Amir) was swinging it late and as it was coming down the pitch you were almost guessing whether it was an inswinger or whether it was one of the straight ones,” the Somerset stalwart explained.

The former left-handed batsman has no doubt England batsmen will struggle against Amir inswingers.

“On that performance yes he will cause problems for England.

“He got Adam Hose with a good inswinger round the wicket and Pete Trego got an absolute beauty.

“That bit of extra pace is the thing. He hasn’t played international cricket for a number of years so there’s probably an extra bit of zipping that he has that makes his hard work.”

Alastair Cook may have said that Amir may have faced hostile situations while bowling to them, but at Taunton, fans have applauded his bowling.

“I don’t think you’d expect anything else,” said Trescothick.

“We get on and play the game and it is what it is.”

At the same time, Pakistan opener Shan Masood said of Amir, “He hasn’t lost it. If anything, he’s just got better.”

England in the home series against Sri Lanka have won by a 2-0 margin.

“We have to respect England, how good they are … but we’re up for it,” insisted Masood.

Sports Crazy man, Live in cricket, Love writing, Studied English journalism in Indian Institute of Mass Communication, Chose sports as the subject for study, Born 24 years ago during the 1992 Cricket world cup. When he is not writing love to watch movies and reading books and novels.

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